Monday, February 18, 2008

America's Favorite Pastime

by DALE K. MYERS

In a recent article posted on Scout.com, sports writer John Holler takes Senator Arlen Specter to task for sticking his nose into what has become known as Spygate – the illegal videotaping of defensive signals being called in by opponents by the New England Patriots in 2007. Specter got involved after it was learned that the illegal taping pre-dated the Patriots’ 2007 bust.

Sports writer Holler declared that the obvious reason for Specter’s involvement was to score points with his constituency before the 2010 Senate race. Mr. Holler writes that “Specter should be the last person criticizing someone else’s investigation,” and proceeds to give his readers a “brief history lesson” on why “a man at the center of the most controversial murder investigation in history” shouldn’t be “the man that heads up an investigation into the NFL.”

In five short paragraphs, Mr. Holler manages to jam so much disinformation about the JFK assassination that it’s hard to know where to begin setting the record straight. But this much is certain: Holler’s twisted take on the assassination is not an isolated perspective. His wholly uninformed viewpoint is unfortunately shared by a vast majority of otherwise intelligent Americans who are convinced that a conspiracy was behind the President’s murder. Here’s what Holler wrote:

“…Specter came to national prominence and received the kind of recognition that propels political candidates when he served on the Warren Commission, which most historians view as an inept, incomplete investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Unlike probes that hire investigators with a police background, the Warren Commission investigators were made up almost entirely of lawyers. They weren’t necessarily looking for all the facts, they were looking for a scenario in which the Warren Report would serve as a legal brief explaining why Lee Harvey Oswald was guilty. If facts didn’t jibe with the one-man, three-shots-from-the-Book Depository theory, they were quickly discarded. Eyewitness statements were ignored. Compelling evidence that others were involved was slanted or swept under the rug and evidence that had historical significance was routinely destroyed…

”For those with any knowledge of the Kennedy assassination, they know that, up until the 11th hour of the “investigation,” there were serious flaws in the commission’s theory and that the commission was having a difficult time making three shots in a little over six seconds work for a shooter with a cheap Italian-made bolt-action rifle. With the wounds to the president and Texas Gov. John Connally, as well as a bystander named James Tague who was slightly injured by a piece of shrapnel from a missed shot, it seemed clear that the commission was dealing with four shots – one more than Oswald could have possibly fired in the short window of time that the shooting took place. Enter Arlen Specter.

”At the time, Specter was a junior counsel with the Warren Commission, which was scrambling to find a way to achieve its goal of soothing the American public that Oswald was the lone assassin and didn’t have any confederates that could still be at large. Desperate to make the lone gunman theory work, Specter proposed a theory so against the laws of physics that it became known as the Magic Bullet Theory. While many people have likely heard of the MBT, they may not know that it was Specter’s creation – his lone theory.

”For those unfamiliar with the Magic Bullet Theory, a shot allegedly fired by Oswald from 60 feet above the president’s limousine at a clear downward angle hit Kennedy in the back at the level of the third thoracic vertebra, moved upward to exit Kennedy’s throat, then hit Connally in the chest blowing away three inches of one of his ribs, went through his right wrist and shattered a dense, heavy bone and somehow tumbled and lodged in his left thigh. The bullet that was said to be the magic bullet was found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital in Dallas (not in Connally’s body) and the bullet was in pristine condition with no deformity or even traces of blood or tissue on it.

”Specter’s theory was so outlandish that a minority of the Warren Commission members wanted to write a second conclusion that claimed they didn’t want to sign off on Specter’s MBT. But, in the Cold War hysteria of the early 1960s, it was felt that it was in the public good to keep a uniform front that Oswald was the killer, he acted alone and was simply a “lone nut” with no ties to any conspiracy, foreign or domestic. Thanks to Arlen Specter, Oswald’s guilt became cemented in the minds of the American public. It was only when the video of the assassination, locked away by Time-Life for more than a decade, surfaced, that public opinion began to turn. But, despite other investigations that followed, the MBT still stands as the official government conclusion on the assassination…”

How many false statements did you count in the five paragraphs above? Here are the major fabrications I spotted (I’ll skip the minor ones for brevity):

”…the Warren Commission, which most historians view as an inept, incomplete investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy…”

Mr. Holler, who couldn’t possibly have gotten within a mile of the Warren Commission’s twenty-six volumes of testimony and exhibits, must have been thinking of historians like Oliver Stone and Robert Groden. Mr. Holler (and many other Americans just like him) don’t realize or want to acknowledge that the Commission took sworn testimony from 489 witnesses completely independent of other testimony and evidence upon which they relied which was gathered by the Dallas Police, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, the Secret Service (who conducted 1,552 interviews and submitted 800 reports totaling 4,600 pages), The Department of State, the IRS, military intelligence agencies, and the FBI (who relied on 169 field agents to conduct 25,000 interviews resulting in 2,300 reports totaling approximately 25,400 pages) to name a few. I could go on, but it’s pretty obvious to even an amateur historian that the Warren Commission conducted what may go down as the most exhaustive investigation in American history.

“…Eyewitness statements were ignored. Compelling evidence that others were involved was slanted or swept under the rug and evidence that had historical significance was routinely destroyed…”

Eyewitness statements ignored? Compelling evidence that others were involved slanted or swept away? Evidence destroyed? No doubt Mr. Holler would tell us that he heard all of this happened somewhere along the way. In fact, I’ve heard similar things repeated time and again, but where is the actual meat and potatoes of these allegations? In the thirty-five plus years of following this case, I’ve read many an allegation along these lines, but not one – I repeat – not one has stood up under scrutiny. It’s fantasy, and one that Mr. Holler an many other Americans choose to believe because it fits their world view, not because it’s true.

“…For those with any knowledge of the Kennedy assassination, they know that, up until the 11th hour of the ‘investigation,’ there were serious flaws in the commission’s theory and that the commission was having a difficult time making three shots in a little over six seconds work for a shooter with a cheap Italian-made bolt-action rifle...”

Indeed. Anyone with any knowledge of the Kennedy assassination knows that Holler is full of it. I can only imagine that Mr. Holler concocted his vision of the Warren Commission struggling to piece together a case against Oswald in the 11th hour of their investigation from a pile of the worst conspiracy books ever written. What I don’t understand is why Holler doesn’t recognize the inconsistency in his own theory. I mean, if the Warren Commission is ignoring eyewitness statements, sweeping evidence under the rug, and routinely destroying vital historical evidence, then how on Earth are they struggling to build a case against Oswald in the 11th hour? I would think a frame-up of the proportions that Mr. Holler describes would make their job a cinch, wouldn’t you? The fact is, the case against Oswald is rock solid and has stood the test of time for the better part of 45 years. And as for Oswald’s “cheap Italian-made bolt-action rifle,” I’ve got a duplicate model and I’ll gladly give any takers a running start before testing just how cheap that rifle is.

“…Desperate to make the lone gunman theory work, Specter proposed a theory so against the laws of physics that it became known as the Magic Bullet Theory. While many people have likely heard of the MBT, they may not know that it was Specter’s creation – his lone theory…”

It is clear from this and his descriptions of the bullet’s alleged flight path that Holler has bought the conspiracy notion of a zig-zagging bullet that is able to hang in mid-air hook, line, and sinker. Of course, this is not what Spector proposed. This is a twisted and completely fabricated version quoted as gospel by conspiracy theorists in order to make Specter and the Warren Commission look foolish. Intelligent people recognize who the real fools are. But that is not my primary bone of contention here. What I object to is Mr. Holler’s suggestion that Specter invented the Single Bullet Theory out of thin air. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The physical evidence proves there was only one gunman (one rifle, one gunman seen firing, bullets recovered were fired from one rifle, etc.) in Dealey Plaza, and therefore it was inevitable that one bullet pierced Kennedy and Connally. The re-enactments conducted by the FBI and Secret Service confirmed that Oswald’s sniper perch, the wound in Kennedy’s back, and the wound in Connally’s back existed along a straight line. Consequently, Specter’s single bullet theory was an inevitable conclusion born from the facts of the case – not something invented out of whole cloth as Mr. Holler and the conspiracy crowd would have you believe.

“…Specter’s theory was so outlandish that a minority of the Warren Commission members wanted to write a second conclusion that claimed they didn’t want to sign off on Specter’s MBT…”

This is absolute rubbish. The real story is that Representative Hale Boggs and Senators Richard Russell and John Cooper (three of the seven-member Commission) expressed strong doubts about the single bullet theory. Only Russell wanted his opposition acknowledged in a footnote at the bottom of the page in the Commission’s report. No one suggested that a second conclusion be drafted. It is interesting to note that the three men who questioned the viability of the single bullet theory were also among those members who attended the fewest Commission hearings. Two of them were the worst attendees. Cooper missed 44 out of 94 hearings, the fourth worst attendance record; Boggs missed 74 hearings, the second worst; and Russell (who wanted to add the footnote dissention) attended only 6 out of 94 hearings. Despite the misgivings of these three members regarding the single bullet theory, all seven members of the Commission agreed that all of the shots which struck Kennedy and Connally were fired from Oswald’s sixth floor sniper’s nest perch in the Texas School Book Depository.

“…Thanks to Arlen Specter, Oswald’s guilt became cemented in the minds of the American public. It was only when the video of the assassination, locked away by Time-Life for more than a decade, surfaced, that public opinion began to turn…”

Intelligent people know, of course, that Oswald’s guilt wasn’t determined solely by Arlen Specter. It was substantiated by a mountain of physical, eyewitness, and circumstantial evidence which 45 years of conspiracy-sleuthing has failed to upset. The video of the assassination, as Mr. Holler describes it, was actually an 8mm home movie film made by Abraham Zapruder. And it wasn’t locked away by Time-Life. Crucial frames showing what happened in Dallas were published by Time-Life within a week of the assassination - so much for hiding the truth. Yes, it is true the film was not show as a motion picture for reasons of taste for more than a decade. I know that seems a novel concept in this instant gratification culture, but there was a time when we didn’t need to see our president’s head blown off to feel the terrible loss. When the Zapruder film was finally shown to the American public, many average Joes (driven by the drum beat of conspiracy theorists) who had no background in physics or wound ballistics suddenly thought they were qualified to explain the president’s backward head snap. Now that the head snap has been adequately explained by those in the know, conspiracy theorists have turned to calling the film a fake – all in the name of keeping the big conspiracy alive and well.

America’s favorite past time used to be the sport of baseball.

Now, it seems, the great American past time is playing the role of historian and pontificating on ‘Who Killed JFK?’ Because, as we all know, it just couldn’t have been Lee Harvey Oswald.